The particular magic of Les Trois Couronnes du matelot (anddoubtless the reason for its rapturous reception by French critics) springs from the way it combines highromantic supernatural appeal with a quirky, questioning modernism that is Ruiz's distinctive voice. Thefoggy monochrome opening irresistably recalls Carn? a student is surprised after committing a brutalmurder and persuaded to spend the night listening to a drunken sailor's tale. The latter's adventures inbrothels and Latin American ports, sailin on what turns out to be a ship of ghosts, take place in a vividlysurreal limbo world that Ruiz and his cinematographer have somehow conjured out of slender TV movieresources. Welles' Lady from Shanghai and Immortal Story may have been departure points but, with itseerie special effects and troubled eroticism, this is as much an eternal mariner's rime of the future. IanChristie, London Film Festival, 1983